Douala: Young leaders schooled on fostering social cohesion, countering hate….

The project's overarching goal is to curb hate speech and prevent political violence in Cameroon, ensuring a peaceful environment for the 2025 elections and future political events. 

The ball was set rolling in Douala, during a two-day workshop, spanning from July 26 to 27 in the Douala III municipality, where the participants were trained on how to carry out the project in their respective departments. 

The initiative focuses on enhancing social cohesion within communities and on digital platforms, by promoting peace and unity through web influencers, digital campaigns, and youth education on community activism. 

The project is set to involve young people in the Douala III municipality, Buea, Mandjou, and Mokolo. This includes a diverse group of young men and women, ranging from civil society members and students to political actors and young municipal councillors, including Internally Displaced Persons, IDPs.

The President of the WILPF Cameroon, Nathalie Wokam Foko, stated that “youth are called upon to understand the role they have to play in the decentralisation process”.

“They should be actors of social cohesion in their respective communities.  Reason why they are being trained on how to go about it,” she added. 

A key aspect of the project is its engagement with municipal councils, which are often fraught with potential conflict due to the involvement of young councillors who, despite their roles, are sometimes sidelined in decision-making processes.

The project aims to build social cohesion by enhancing these youth's capacity to prevent violence and contribute to their communities' development.

A total of 120 young individuals from four councils will receive training in community activism for peace throughout the project, and work collaboratively with mayors to aid in the formulation of council action plans and participate in budgetary debates, in line with the new decentralisation law. This, as the electoral year is fast approaching. 

Hence, according to the organisers, the workshop was all about giving the youth the adequate tools, the capacity in order to find adaptive strategies to curb hate speech and violence which might come up during that time.

Since 2014, WILPF Cameroon has been working towards a violence-free Cameroon where human rights are protected and equal opportunities are available to all. 

Intergenerational approach

Central to this effort is engaging youth through an intergenerational approach to ensure the sustainability and effectiveness of their peacebuilding activities. 

This approach has led WILPF Cameroon to explore the role of youth in conflict prevention and resolution, particularly through municipal youth councils, which serve as important platforms for youth engagement in local governance.

In addition to the traditional methods of engagement, the project includes an online component. This facet addresses the rise of social media influencers who use digital platforms to share content and sway their large follower bases. 

The Littoral Regional Delegate of Decentralisation and Local Development, Mouhaman Abass, highlighted that the youth “have to know how to behave on social media. They are not supposed to be promoters of fake news or hate speech which inevitably weakens social cohesion”.

A youth senator who took part in the workshop, Raissa Bomba, said “taking part in such a workshop is a step forward to fighting hate speech on digital platforms and contributing to a society free from violence emanating from hate speech”. 

“We as youth senators are going put what we learned into practice and get down to the field to sensitize our fellow youths on the subject matter,” the youth senator added.

As it stands, after being schooled on the different strategies to fight hate speech in the society, they are expected to put them into practice and yield tangible results. 

This story was first published in The Guardian Post issue No:3185 of Wednesday July 31, 2024